Someone astute once said "history repeats itself--the first as tragedy and then as farce." Oh, yes, it was Karl Marx in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. Quite relevant to the subject. I have followed the beginning of the 2020 presidential campaign undecided whether to cry or laugh. That is to say, I am undecided whether to view the unfolding season as a tragic or farcical circumstance. Of particular agony is the back-and-forth between President Trump and his sycophants on the one...

The American war on Venezuela continues to escalate with the sabotage of it’s electricity grid, the most serious action of all so far, which was not only an act of terrorism against the entire civilian population but also an attempt to shut down exports of Venezuelan oil. This is part of the American hybrid war strategy. Hybrid warfare is warfare that uses all domains of life and society to hurt and damage the targeted nation. It was best defined by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiansui, two senior...

I don't believe there ever has been a speech quite like the keynote speech delivered on Tuesday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Houston, Texas at CERAWeek, the major annual energy conference put together by Cambridge Energy Research Associates. The conference is a big deal for the energy sector. Sponsoring partners include: Credit Suisse, BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Morgan Stanley, The Carlyle Group, Chevron, Baker Hughes, TOTAL, Occidental Petroleum, MIT Energy Initiative, Petrobras,...

US imperialists are so desperate in their regime-change predations over Venezuela, they seem to have a problem controlling their drooling mouths. The latest orgy of American gloating was triggered by the massive power outages to have hit Venezuela. No sooner had the South American country been blacked out from its power grid collapsing, senior US officials were crowing with perverse relish. Republican Senator Marco Rubio – who has become a point man for the Trump administration in its...

When Sen. John McCain passed away last August, he was lauded far and wide for his long career of public service. Rep. John Lewis, the famous civil-rights activist, hailed McCain as a “warrior for peace.” In reality, McCain embodied a toxic mix of moralism and militarism that worked out disastrously for America and the world. In his funeral eulogies, McCain was portrayed as a hero and a visionary. But early in his congressional career, he barely avoided indictment as part of the Keating Five...

It doesn’t matter what corporate alphabet propaganda network you watch, you’re going to get the same line on Venezuela. Here we have Trish Regan, a fixture at Fox News, telling numerous lies about Venezuela, lies put out by neocons and their captured president. We MUST stay committed to the end of #Maduro’s BRUTAL socialist regime. He MUST step aside so that #Democracy can be restored in #Venezuela. And for countries like #China that want to STICK IT to the U.S. by supporting a dictator?!...

President Donald Trump is frequently seen through the prism of an American media that despises him and wants to discredit him so that he can either be impeached soon or defeated in 2020. To a certain extent the foreign media has picked up on that depiction of Trump, emphasizing his boorish qualities and narcissism while neglecting what he has or has not accomplished while in office. To be sure there have been major missteps which have driven the Europeans and others crazy, including the...

A September 2010 memo by a US-funded soft power organization that helped train Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaido and his allies identifies the potential collapse of the country’s electrical sector as “a watershed event” that “would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate.” The memo has special relevance today as Guaido moves to exploit nationwide blackouts caused by a major failure at the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric...

Another Boeing 737 crashed Sunday in Ethiopia, killing all 157 aboard. This is the second crash of the new Boeing model Max 8 since October. Investigators have only begun sorting out this tragedy but some experts suggest that the plane’s automated safety software may have prevented the pilot from preventing the fatal plunge. If software and sensors designed to prevent crashes actually increased the risk of catastrophe, then the Boeing accidents are another reminder that safety policies can...

Last week's release by Congressman Collins of the interview transcript of Bruce Ohr, who appeared before the House Judiciary Committee last year, is quite damning of the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ). If our system of justice is truly blind and committed to fairness, there is little doubt that former FBI and DOJ officials - Comey, McCabe, Yates and Rosenstein - will be facing serious legal jeopardy. They have lied. The biggest "revelations" from Ohr are as follows: 1) Christopher...

Every major US war of the last several decades has begun the same way: the US government fabricates an inflammatory, emotionally provocative lie which large US media outlets uncritically treat as truth while refusing at air questioning or dissent, thus inflaming primal anger against the country the US wants to attack. That’s how we got the Vietnam War (North Vietnam attacks US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin); the Gulf War (Saddam ripped babies from incubators); and, of course, the war in Iraq...

The House of Representatives recently passed legislation that would expand the national background check system to require almost everyone selling firearms, including private collectors who supplement their incomes by selling firearms at gun shows, to perform background checks on the potential buyers. The bill has a section purporting to bar creation of a national firearms registry. However, the expanded background check system will require the government to compile lists of those buying and...

On Monday, in an all-but-unreported news item, the Pentagon announced that it would be paying $946 million to Lockheed Martin toward the installation of a missile defense system that was purchased — not by the United States government — but by Saudi Arabia. In other words, the Pentagon is paying nearly $1 billion to subsidize a purchase made by a foreign power. In its announcement, the Pentagon referred to the payment as an “undefinitized contract action” that would be used, in part, to...

Saying anything negative about Israel has long been the third rail of US politics and media. Israel is our nation’s most sacred cow. Any questioning of its behavior brings furious charges of anti-Semitism and professional oblivion. I keep in my bookcase a cautionary book, "They Dared Speak Out" written by US senators and congressmen who all lost their positions after rebuking Israel for its mistreatment of Palestinians or daring to suggest that Israel had far too much influence in the US....

Marco Rubio, the neocon senator from Florida, considers a suspicious power outage across Venezuela to be funny. He would no doubt feel different if his mother was on a ventilator in a Caracas hospital—then again. A few weeks ago the #MaduroRegime blamed iguanas for causing a large electric grid blackout. We have now received the first video of what caused tonight’s unprecedented nationwide blackout in #Venezuela: #SinLuz pic.twitter.com/TnYevG2GA0 — Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 8, 2019...